Cliff and Monica Hill have led the Ministry from its inception. Cliff was ordained in 1952 and celebrates his 70th anniversary of ministry on 4th October 2022. Monica began life as a teacher before joining Cliff in ministry when they married in 1957. They began their ministry in charge of churches in London, exercising pastoral ministry in Harlesden West London, Tottenham North London, Newham East London, and Lambeth South London.
Their national and international ministry began in the 1970s with Monica specialising in community development and church growth and Cliff studying the changes in society against a biblical background; and in 1979 they became Joint Directors of Evangelism and Church Growth with the Evangelical Alliance.
Following the 1980 National Congress in Evangelism, Monica continued with a Church Growth emphasis and became the founding Executive Director of the British Church Growth Association (BCGA). At this point the concept of C and M Ministries was developed as a support for both Cliff and Monica in the future. It was felt C&M should simply be a personal support group within the recently formed Prophetic Word Ministries (PWM) and it was only later that it was formed into a separate charity.
Through PWM, Cliff started the magazine Prophecy Today in 1983 and was one of the leaders in the Carmel/Jerusalem Gatherings in 1986. PWM and BCGA also combined forces to found the Centre for Contemporary Ministry (CCM) as an outreach educational ministry.
C and M Ministries finally became an independent charity in its own right in 1993 and since then has continued supporting new outreaches in mission.
In 1994, the ministries established by Cliff and Monica were the main drivers in the purchase of Moggerhanger Park as a base for Christian ministry and community, having established Harvest Vision a year earlier to carry this out. The group initially bought Moggerhanger Park for £1 and raised the first £500,000 for its restoration. They worked together to set the operating principles and establish Moggerhanger Park as a Ministry Centre.
Because of the architectural importance of Moggerhanger House, Harvest Vision created Moggerhanger House Preservation Trust (MHPT) to manage this aspect while retaining overall control and coordination. CCM moved its base from Bawtry Hall to Moggerhanger and changed its trust deed to enable it to manage and coordinate the ministry at Moggerhanger. However by 2004 the operation of the estate had increased to such as extent that CCM transferred this responsibility to Moggerhanger Park Limited, a trading arm of MHPT. Moggerhanger Park Ltd became a successful organisation operating on community principles for a few years before a more commercial approach was adopted by MHPT. So, in 2011 when adjoining properties became available, Park Farm was purchased by CCM for ministry activities and flourished as a separate community development programme for a number of years before finally being incorporated into the overall Moggerhanger estate in 2021.
During their time in Moggerhanger, Cliff and Monica also formed a number of other projects and ministries including the Thornton Institute, Pardes (Biblical and Hebraic Study Centre), Christian Workplace Forum (now ‘Transform Work UK’) and the Zong Project which later resulted on in the formation of Movement for Justice and Reconciliation.
Gradually the emphasis of their Moggerhanger base became more commercial with the buildings taking precedence. By 2012 the House and estate was being run on secular principles and Cliff and Monica had become less involved. At this point, the C&M Ministries trustees, while still retaining the charity name, legally adopted the name of Issachar Ministries as the action arm of the charity, allowing Cliff and Monica to focus on national ministry again; and in 2015 the charity moved into new premises in Sandy, Bedfordshire following 20 years leading the joint ministries and Christian presence at Moggerhanger.
Finally, in the summer of 2021, in the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic, the charity gave up their offices in Sandy to operate online - and in January 2022 the ongoing work of Issachar Ministries UK as well as Prophecy Today (an online magazine since 2015) became separate entities leaving Cliff and Monica and C&M Ministries to focus on heritage, building on the past to encourage and equip the future.
The C&M Trustees
The current trustees of C&M Ministries are:
Jenny Cooper (Chair)
Neil Harvey (Treasurer)
Angela Isbister
Alison Neurauter
Stephen Hill
Partner Organisations: C&M Ministries has had connections with many other organisations in the past; our current partners are Issachar Ministries and Prophecy Today.